The United States, on Wednesday, ordered China to shut down its consulate in Texas's Houston, with an outraged Beijing denouncing the order and threatening a firm response. The consulate is one of China's six missions in the United States, and its closure marks a fresh period of escalation in the hostile relations between the two countries over trade, security and Hong Kong.
The US State Department said it ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours after alleging that Chinese agents tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio called the facility the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies." Rubio, the senator from Florida, called it a massive spy centre. "China's consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies and influence operations in the United States," he tweeted.
Cai Wei, the Chinese consul general, told KTRK-TV in Houston that the order to shut down was quite wrong and "very damaging to US-China relations". Asked about accusations of espionage and stealing data, Cai said: "You have to give some evidence, say something from the facts. ... Knowing Americans, you have the rule of law, you are not guilty until you are proved guilty."
Earlier, the US Department of Justice had announced the indictments of two Chinese hackers on charges of trying to steal pharmaceutical secrets from US companies related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was no indication the indictments and the consulate action are related, the US has long alleged China is involved in nefarious activity around the country, including from its Houston consulate.
China strongly condemned the action. "The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. He warned of firm countermeasures if the US did not reverse it.
-Inputs from agencies
